


the days of miracle and wonder

by bluecarrot



Category: 18th Century CE RPF, Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: Christianity, M/M, War, all the feels, it's a thing okay, post-battle eroticism, referenced anyway
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-19
Updated: 2017-02-19
Packaged: 2018-09-25 16:55:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,521
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9831143
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluecarrot/pseuds/bluecarrot
Summary: Burr finds some truths on the battlefield, as one does -- and finds some detritus as well. It's impossible to reconcile these things, he thinks; elements do not mingle; they only align -- or not.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [thinksideways](https://archiveofourown.org/users/thinksideways/gifts).



> written February 2017  
> on request for that brilliant clever superlatively-excellent author thinksideways

 

 _God  
  
_ not a prayer but a plea, a request: _God, please  
  
_ grapeshot from a cannon bursts into the dirt somewhere close by and Burr ducks, can't help it, all instinct: _God_ he thinks _thou god O my father_

please

Forward. Forward. Across the field and lost somewhere are his own men, hidden by clouds of smoke and the noise that stops his mind from anything but the most basic, the most essential, this of course is why they drill endlessly with musket held stiff to their shoulders, marching and turning and marching in the summer heat -- everything else falls away during battle except instinct

and he's still looking for Hamilton.

A ball strikes his horse and she rears screaming and Burr holds on by knees and arms and untangles himself as she falls not backwards but forwards -- he rolls off and stumbles towards her again, she's hit deep in her side, no glancing blow -- he doesn't think about it won't let himself think can't think

just holds his musket steady and cuts her neck open quick with the half-rusted bayonet 

and wipes his hand over his face, it's so goddamn hot today he can't think

forward, forward

It's so hot. His mouth is dry, his eyes are stinging and sore -- _Father, hear me_ \-- 

Where is Hamilton?

Ludicrously (because they are so different) the idea of Alexander calls to mind the memory of Jack Bellamy. _My dearest soldier,_ he'd written, and _I was infinitely surprised,_ and Burr cannot bring the rest of the letter to mind though he's read it a dozen times and usually commits to memory a passage after a single reading -- all he can think of are the final lines: _It rains, my boy, excessively._ _Does it not leak through your tent?_

Moisture in his eyes again. The rain. It must be the rain. Bellamy is dead so it must be the rain again, he couldn't possibly be crying, but where the fuck is Alex? _O my father_  he thinks, prayers and Hamilton mixing in his head

the noise is all he has left

this is all he knows of god, now; this is what it's distilled to after two years and seven months of war. No faith anymore, no assurance. All he holds onto is the desperate plea for mercy. _God's hands wait for thee_  his grandfather shouted from the pulpit. _God's hands alone shall save thee from the pit._

God's hands are very hot and sweaty, and this is mercy, he thinks. God's hands stretch wide the skin of his throat; they draw a knife across his pulse; they hold a bowl to catch his blood, and this is righteous mercy. After two years and seven months of war, Burr has lost the right to hope for anything more. And where is Hamilton?

Another soldier calls out to Burr, words he can't understand and they're lost now in the way the man's shoulders arch back as if in passion and it's a staccato burst of silence, how the blood sprays out, how his final words dissolve in noise, sense and meaning lost.

Burr vomits in the dirt and -- it might be mercy -- all the bullets miss him.  
  
  
*   
  


"Aaron."

"You lived."

"You seem surprised," says Hamilton; he's idly picking up an inkwell, turning it in his hands.

"Careful with that. The cork's loose."

"I won't spill. Don't want ink on my hands." It's a joke, got to be; even from across the tent, even in the semi-solid dark, Burr can see the splots and stains crawling up Hamilton's long fingers. But his voice is mild, serious, detached. 

It's ridiculous. Burr is so tired he's nearly to hallucinations, and here is Hamilton -- the last person he expected or even wanted to see -- looking comfortable and relaxed and seeking a cozy chat.

But Hamilton won't stop fidgeting. "Do you know what I thought -- what I couldn't stop thinking about -- this afternoon? All through the battle?"

"I could not imagine what goes on in that head of yours."

"Nor do you want to, eh?" Alex looks up. Grins. His hair is loose again and falling in his face, again, and Burr feels the familiar tugging or tension in his chest that comes on when he sees those eyes, that smile -- whether it is directed at him or not. "Come on, haven't you ever wanted a seat at the table?"

"What table? Get your hands out of my things, would you?" 

"With the General and myself. The tent where it happens, Burr. Don't you want to be there with us? Don't you even want to _know_ _?_ " And again, he smiles.

He's egging Burr on, it's like his rudeness to expose a wound under the guise of friendship and then rub salt into it. Burr sets his jaw. Does nothing. Says nothing.

Alexander says "I'm really desperately curious to know what the General has against you. Never quite dared to ask, you're _persona non grata_ , but I do wonder ..."

"The wonder is that he became so fond of you," snaps Burr. "What are you about, Hamilton? Stop touching my things! Why are you here?"

But Alexander, predictably, continues to rifle through Burr's writing-desk, disrupting the tidy neatness of trimmed quills and fresh paper -- so Burr slams down the lid on those inquisitive, ink-stained fingers. 

"Hey!"

"I've told you and told you -- I don't know how many times. I swear you're like a toddler. What do you need? What do you want?" 

Alex's eyes drop low. He's not smiling now. "What would the General say, if he knew how you'd been treating me?"

"Is that a threat?" _What do I care_ , he should have said. Or _At least then he would remember who I am, maybe._  

"Do you need it to be a threat? Is that what it'll take for you to listen to me? ... That's why I'm here. Listen. All afternoon -- all through that horrible mess of screaming and dying -- and the smoke, all that smoke, that's the worst bit of all, isn't it? You know it gets in your nose and tickles, and it's completely insignificant but altogether unbearable -- aren't the small things always the worst? Why is that? Answer me. Are you even listening?"

Burr sits down hard on the camp-chair. He's laughing, he can't help it, because -- "To be quite honest, I'm trying not to listen to you -- your -- it's nonsense, Hamilton. I am trying not to listen to your nonsense." He is trying not to get up and run. He is trying to ignore the ache beginning in his groin -- he always gets like this after a skirmish, it's like his body needs to remember it's alive -- the adrenaline collecting -- and Alex is alive too and he's here and he's so fucking beautiful. 

Nonsense. It's nonsense. But he aches.

Alex moves, stands right in front of him so Burr has to crane his neck. Says: "What do you want from me right now?"

"Truly?"

"Truth, Aaron Burr."

There's something wide-awake and staring in Burr's chest, and he doesn't want it to wake up, he needs it to fall back asleep: he tries for scorn. "You make me feel like -- like we're schoolboys, playing bets --"

"Were we ever really schoolboys? Come on, Burr. Talk to me. That battle! Aaron, I swear to you -- and I expect you not to repeat this, you know it's all spoken in confidence; if I hear someone defaming me, I'll know where it originated -- really, I thought that I was going to die." It's still hot, but Alex shivers. His eyes are dark and shining in the tent, all that can be seen of his face are his eyes and the bright color on his cheeks and the darkness between his parted lips. 

\-- his mouth. Burr cannot stop staring at it. He needs to stop staring. He says, without meaning to say it, needing simply to say anything at all: "I'd thought the same thing. About you."

"Were you looking for me?"

"That would be foolish." He hears again his own voice, loud when all the rest of the world was still: _God, please_

_O my father_

Hamilton says again: "But did you do it?"  

He moves ever-so-slightly closer. He's so close. Too close, and Burr can't move away -- he certainly can't answer that question, from this man.

"I thought that I might die, or that you would. And do you know my regret? Do you know what I wanted to do, more than anything? No," and Alex is shaking his head, as if Burr has spoken and he hasn't spoken, he's caught up tight and transfixed, he's on the edge of trembling: "No, Aaron Burr. You know I wasn't thinking about the war."

When did Hamilton learn to read Burr's thoughts? When did Burr lose the ability to dissemble? Because Alex puts his ink-stained fingers on the corner of Burr's mouth like he has the goddamn right to do it -- and Burr knows his hunger is bright and clear as the sunrise -- he knows Alex will understand why his eyes shut when they kiss -- it will give away everything he has tried to hide.

**Author's Note:**

> -Jonathan Edwards (Aaron Burr's grandfather) was indeed a fire-and-brimstone preacher; he's most famous for the violently furious sermon "Sinner in the hands of an angry God." Eesh.
> 
> -"God's hands are very hot and sweaty" is from _The Devil's Arithmetic_ , written by Jane Yolen. Good book.
> 
> -"staccato bursts of silence" is a misremembering of the lyrics of Paul Simon's gorgeous, elemental song ["Boy in the Bubble"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uy5T6s25XK4), from which this fic is titled, also.
> 
> *
> 
> i'm over @littledeconstruction  
> at tumblr  
> where i might or might not be coherent on any given day


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